Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Murderer’s Bride and Other Stories

Danger Out of The Past (Protection)

The roadside restaurant oozed an atmosphere of peaceful prosperity. It was a green-painted building set in a white-graveled circle in the triangle where the two main highways joined.

Five miles beyond, a pall of hazy smog marked the location of the city; but out here at the restaurant the air was pure and crystal-clear.

George Ollie slid down from the stool behind the cash register and walked over to look out of the window. His face held an expression which indicated physical well-being and mental contentment.

In the seven short years since he had started working as a cook over the big range in the rear he had done pretty well for himself — exceptionally well for a two-time loser — although no one here knew that, of course. Nor did anyone know of that last job where a confederate had lost his head and pulled the trigger...

But all that was in the past. George Ollie, president of a luncheon club, member of the Chamber of Commerce, had no connection with that George Ollie who had been Prisoner Number 56289.

In a way, however, George owed something of his present prosperity to his criminal record. When he had started work in the restaurant, that bank job which had been “ranked” preyed on his mind. For three years he had been intent on keeping out of circulation. He had stayed in his room nights and had therefore saved all the money that he had made.

So, when the owner’s heart had given out and it became necessary for him to sell almost on a moment’s notice, George was able to make a down payment in cash. From then on, hard work, careful management, and the chance relocation of a main highway had spelled prosperity for the ex-con.

George turned away from the window, looked over the tables at the symmetrical figure of Stella, the head waitress, as she bent over the table taking the orders of the family that had just entered.

Just as the thrill of pride swept, through George whenever he looked at the well-kept restaurant, the graveled parking area, and the constantly accelerating stream of traffic which poured by on the main highways — a traffic which furnished him with a constantly increasing number of customers — so did George thrill with a sense of possessive pride whenever he looked at Stella’s curved figure.

There was no question but that Stella knew how to wear clothes. Somewhere, George thought, there must in Stella’s past have been a period of prosperity, a period when she had worn the latest Parisian models with distinction. Now she wore the light blue uniform, with the white starched cuffs above the elbow and the white collar, with the same air of distinction. She not only gave class to the uniforms but she gave class to the place.

When Stella walked, the lines of her figure rippled smoothly beneath the clothes. Customers looking at her invariably looked again. Yet Stella was always demure, never forward. She smiled at the right time and in the right way. If the customer tried to get intimate, Stella always managed to create an atmosphere of urgency so that she gave the impression of an amiable, potentially willing young woman who was too busy for intimacies.

George could tell from the manner in which she put food down at a table and smilingly hurried back to the kitchen, as though on a matter of the greatest importance, just what was being said by the people at the table — whether it was an appreciative acknowledgment of skillful service, good-natured banter, or the attempt on the part of predatory males to make a date.

But George had never inquired into Stella’s past. Because of his own history he had a horror of anything that even hinted of an attempt to inquire into one’s past. The present was all that counted.

Stella herself avoided going to the city. She went on a shopping trip once or twice a month, attended an occasional movie, but for the rest stayed quietly at home in the little motel a couple of hundred yards down the roadway.

George was aroused from his reverie by a tapping sound. The man at the counter was tapping a coin on the mahogany. He had entered from the east door and George, contemplating the restaurant, hadn’t noticed him.

During this period of slack time in the afternoon Stella was the only waitress on duty. Unexpectedly half a dozen tables had filled up and Stella was busy.

George departed from his customary post at the cash register to approach the man. He handed over a menu, filled a glass with water, arranged a napkin, spoon, knife, and fork, and stood waiting.

The man, his hat pulled well down on his forehead, tossed the menu to one side with a gesture almost of contempt.

“Curried shrimp.”

“Sorry,” George explained affably, “that’s not on the menu today.”

“Curried shrimp,” the man repeated.

George raised his voice. Probably the other was hard of hearing. “We don’t have them today, sir. We have—”

“You heard me,” the man said. “Curried shrimp. Go get ’em.”

There was something about the dominant voice, the set of the man’s shoulders, the arrogance, that tugged at George’s memory. Now that he thought back on it, even the contemptuous gesture with which the man had tossed the menu to one side without reading it meant something.

George leaned a little closer.

“Larry!” he exclaimed in horror.

Larry Giffen looked up and grinned. “Georgie!” The way he said the name was contemptuously sarcastic.

“When — when did you — how did you get out?”

“It’s okay. Georgie,” Larry said. “I went out through the front door. Now go get me the curried shrimp.”

“Look, Larry,” George said, making a pretense of fighting the feeling of futility this man always inspired, “the cook is cranky. I’m having plenty of trouble with the help and—”

“You heard me,” the man said. “Curried shrimp. Go get ’em.”

George met Larry’s eyes, hesitated, turned away toward the kitchen.

Stella paused beside the range as he was working over the special curry sauce.

“What’s the idea?” she asked.

“A special.”

Her eyes studied his face. “How special?”

“Very special.”

She walked out.

Larry Giffen ate the curried shrimp. He looked around the place with an air of proprietorship.

“Think maybe I’ll go in business with you, Georgie.”

George Ollie knew from the dryness in his mouth, the feeling in his knees, that that was what he had been expecting.

Larry jerked his head toward Stella. “She goes with the joint.”

Ollie, suddenly angry and belligerent, took a step forward. “She doesn’t go with anything.”

Giffen laughed, turned on his heel, started toward the door, swung back, said, “I’ll see you after closing tonight,” and walked out.

It wasn’t until the period of dead slack that Stella moved close to George.

“Want to tell me?” she asked.

He tried to look surprised. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m sorry, Stella. I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“He’s dangerous.”

“To whom?”

“To you — to both of us.”

She shrugged. “You never gain anything by running.”

He pleaded with her. “Don’t get tangled in it, Stella. You remember last night the police were out here for coffee and doughnuts after driving around like mad — those two big jobs, the one on the safe in the bank, the other on the theater safe?”

She nodded.

“I should have known then,” he told her. "That’s Larry’s technique. He never leaves them anything to work on. Rubber gloves so there are no fingerprints. Burglar alarms disconnected. Everything like clockwork. No clues. No wonder the police were going crazy. Larry Giffen never leaves them a clue.”

She studied him. “What’s he got on you?"

George turned away, then faced her, tried to speak, and couldn’t.

“Okay,” she said. “I withdraw the question.”

Two customers came in. Stella escorted them to a table and went on with the regular routine. She seemed calmly competent, completely unworried. George Ollie, on the other hand, couldn’t get his thoughts together. His world had collapsed. Rubber-glove Giffen must have found out about George’s bank job with the green accomplice, otherwise he wouldn’t have dropped in.

News travels fast in the underworld. Despite carefully cultivated changes in his personal appearance, some smart ex-con while eating at the restaurant must have “made” George Ollie. He had said nothing to George, but had reserved the news as an exclusive for the ears of Larry Giffen. The prison underworld knew Big Larry might have use for George — as a farmer had use for a horse.

And now Larry had “dropped in.”

Other customers arrived. The restaurant filled up. The rush-hour waitresses came on. For two and a half hours there was so much business that George had no chance to think. Then business began to slacken. By eleven o’clock it was down to a trickle. At midnight George closed up.

“Coming over?” Stella asked.

“Not tonight,” George said. “I want to do a little figuring on a purchase list.”

She said nothing and went out.

George locked the doors, put on the heavy double bolts, and yet, even as he turned out the lights and put the bars in place, he knew that bolts wouldn’t protect him from what was coming.

Larry Giffen kicked on the door at 12:30.

George, in the shadows, pretended not to hear. He wondered what Larry would do if he found that George had ignored his threat, had gone away and left the place protected by locks and the law.

Larry Giffen knew better. He kicked violently on the door, then turned and banged it with his heel — banged it so hard that the glass rattled and threatened to break.

George hurried out of the shadows and opened the door.

“What’s the idea of keeping me waiting, Georgie?” Larry asked with a solicitude that was overdone to the point of sarcasm. “Don’t you want to be chummy with your old friend?”

George said, “Larry, I’m on the square, on the legit. I’m staying that way.”

Larry threw back his head and laughed. “You know what happens to rats, Georgie.”

“I’m no rat, Larry. I’m going straight, that’s all. I’ve paid my debts to the law and to you.”

Larry showed big yellowed teeth as he grinned. “Ain’t that nice, Georgie. All your debts paid! Now how about that National Bank job where Skinny got in a panic because the cashier didn’t get ’em up fast enough?”

“I wasn’t in on that, Larry.”

Larry’s grin was triumphant. “Says you! You were handling the getaway car. The cops got one fingerprint from the rear-view mirror. The F.B.I. couldn’t classify that one print, but if anyone ever started ’em checking it with your file, Georgie, your fanny would be jerked off that cushioned stool by the cash register and transferred to the electric chair — the hot seat, Georgie... You never did like the hot seat, Georgie.”

George Ollie licked dry lips. His forehead moistened with sweat. He wanted to say something but there was nothing he could say.

Larry went on talking. “I pulled a couple of jobs here. I’m going to pull just one more. Then I’m moving in with you, Georgie. I’m your new partner. You need a little protection. I’m giving it to you.”

Larry swaggered over to the cash register, rang up No Sale, pulled the drawer open, and raised the hood over the roll of paper to look at the day’s receipts.

“Now, Georgie,” he said, regarding the empty cash drawer, “you shouldn’t have put away all that dough. Where is it?”

George Ollie gathered all the reserves of his self-respect. “Go to hell,” he said. “I’ve been on the square and I’m going to stay on the square.”

Larry strode across toward him. His open left hand slammed against the side of George’s face with staggering impact.

“You’re hot,” Larry said, and his right hand swung up to the other side of George’s face. “You’re hot, Georgie,” and his left hand came up from his hip.

George made a pretense at defending himself but Larry Giffen, quick as a cat, strong as a bear, came after him. “You’re hot.”... Wham... “You’re hot, Georgie.”

At length Larry stepped back. “I’m taking a half interest. You’ll run it for me when I’m not here, Georgie. You’ll keep accurate books. You’ll do all the work. Half of the profits are mine. I’ll come in once in a while to look things over. Be damn certain that you don’t try any cheating, Georgie.

“You wouldn’t like the hot squat, Georgie. You’re fat, Georgie. You’re well fed. You’ve teamed up with that swivel-hipped babe, Georgie. I could see it in your eye. She’s class, and she goes with the place, Georgie. Remember, I’m cutting myself in for a half interest. I’m leaving it to you to see there isn’t any trouble.” George Ollie’s head was in a whirl. His cheeks were stinging from the heavy-handed slaps of the big man. His soul felt crushed under a weight. Larry Giffen knew no law but the law of power, and Larry Giffen, his little malevolent eyes glittering with sadistic gloating, was on the move, coming toward him again, hoping for an opportunity to beat him up.

George hadn’t known when Stella had let herself in. Her key had opened the door smoothly.

“What’s he got on you, George?” she asked.

Larry Giffen swung to the sound of her voice. “Well, well, little Miss Swivel-hips,” he said. “Come here, Swivel-hips. I’m half owner in the place now. Meet your new boss.”

She stood still, looking from him to George Ollie.

Larry turned to George.

“All right, Georgie, where’s the safe? Give me the combination to the safe, Georgie. As your new partner I’ll need to have it. I’ll handle the day’s take. Later on you can keep books, but right now I need money. I have a heavy date tonight.”

George Ollie hesitated a moment, then moved back toward the kitchen.

“I said give me the combination to the safe,” Larry Giffen said, his voice cracking like a whip.

Stella was looking at him. George had to make it a showdown. “The dough’s back here,” he said. He moved toward the rack where the big butcher knives were hanging.

Larry Giffen read his mind. Larry had always been able to read him like a book.

Larry’s hand moved swiftly. A snub-nosed gun nestled in Larry’s big hand.

There was murder in the man’s eye but his voice remained silky and taunting.

“Now, Georgie, you must be a good boy. Don’t act rough. Remember, Georgie, I’ve done my last time. No one takes Big Larry alive. Give me the combination to the safe, Georgie. And I don’t want any fooling!”

George Ollie reached a decision. It was better to die fighting than to be strapped into an electric chair. He ignored the gun, kept moving back toward the knife rack.

Big Larry Giffen was puzzled for a moment. George had always collapsed like a flat tire when Larry had given an order. This was a new George Ollie. Larry couldn’t afford to shoot. He didn’t want noise and he didn’t want to kill.

“Hold it, Georgie! You don’t need to get rough.” Larry put away his gun. “You’re hot on that bank job, Georgie. Remember I can send you to the hot squat. That’s all the argument I’m going to use, Georgie. You don’t need to go for a shiv. Just tell me to walk out, Georgie, and I’ll leave. Big Larry doesn’t stay where he isn’t welcome.

“But you’d better welcome me, Georgie boy. You’d better give me the combination to the safe. You’d better take me in as your new partner. Which is it going to be, Georgie?”

It was Stella who answered the question. Her voice was calm and clear. “Don’t hurt him. You’ll get the money.”

Big Larry looked at her. His eyes changed expression. “Now that’s the sort of a broad I like. Tell your new boss where the safe is. Start talking, babe, and remember you go with the place.”

“There isn’t any safe,” George said hurriedly. “I banked the money.”

Big Larry grinned. “You’re a liar. You haven’t left the place. I’ve been casing the joint. Go on, babe, tell me where the hell that safe is. Then Georgie here will give his new partner the combination.”

“Concealed back of the sliding partition in the pie counter,” Stella said.

“Well, well, well,” Larry Giffen observed, “isn’t that interesting?”

“Please don’t hurt him,” Stella pleaded. “The shelves lift out—”

“Stella!” George Ollie said sharply. “Shut up!”

“The damage has been done now, Georgie boy,” Giffen said.

Larry slid back the glass doors of the pie compartment, lifted out the shelves, put them on the top of the counter, then slid back the partition disclosing the safe door.

“Clever, Georgie boy, clever! You called on your experience, didn’t you? And now the combination. Georgie.”

Ollie said, “You can’t get way with it, Larry. I won’t—”

“Now, Georgie boy, don’t talk that way. I’m your partner. I’m in here fifty-fifty with you. You do the work and run the place and I’ll take my half from time to time. — But you’ve been holding out on me for a while, Georgie boy, so everything that’s in the safe is part of my half. Come on with the combination. — Of course, I could make a spindle job on it, but since I’m a half owner in the joint I hate to damage any of the property. Then you’d have to buy a new safe. The cost of that would have to come out of your half. You couldn’t expect me to pay for a new safe.”

Rubber-glove Giffen laughed at his little joke.

“I said to hell with you,” George Ollie said.

Larry Giffen’s fist clenched. “I guess you need a damn good working over, Georgie boy. You shouldn’t be disrespectful.”

Stella’s voice cut in. “Leave him alone. I said you’d get the money. George doesn’t want the electric chair.”

Larry turned back to her. “I like ’em sensible, sweetheart. Later on I’ll tell you about it. Right now it’s all business. Business before pleasure. Let’s go.”

“Ninety-seven four times to the right,” Stella said.

“Well, well, well,” Giffen observed. “She knows the combination. We both know what that means, Georgie boy, don’t we?”

George, his face red and swollen from the impact of the slaps, stood helpless.

“It means she really is part of the place,” Giffen said. “I’ve got a half interest in you too, girlie. I’m looking forward to collecting on that too. Now what’s the rest of the combination?”

Giffen bent over the safe; then, suddenly thinking better of it, he straightened, slipped the snub-nosed revolver into his left hand, and said, “Just so you don’t get ideas, Georgie boy — but you wouldn’t. You don’t like the idea of the hot squat, do you?”

Stella, white-faced and tense, called out the numbers. Larry Giffen spun the dials on the safe, swung the door open, opened the cash box.

“Well, well, well,” he said, sweeping the bills and money into his pocket. “It was a good day, wasn’t it?”

Stella said, “There’s a hundred-dollar bill in the ledger.”

Big Larry pulled out the ledger. “So there is, so there is,” he said, surveying the hundred-dollar bill with the slightly tom comer. “Girlie, you’re a big help. I’m glad you go with the place. I think we’re going to get along swell.”

Larry straightened, backed away from the safe, stood looking at George Ollie.

“Don’t look like that, Georgie boy. It isn’t so bad. I’ll leave you enough profit to keep you in business and keep you interested in the work. I’ll just take off the cream. I’ll drop in to see you from time to time, and, of course, Georgie boy, you won’t tell anybody that you’ve seen me. Even if you did, it wouldn’t do any good because I came out the front door, Georgie boy. I’m smart. I’m not like you. I don’t have something hanging over me where someone can jerk the rug out from under me at any time.

“Well, Georgie boy, I’ve got to be toddling along. I’ve got a little job at the supermarket up the street. They put altogether too much confidence in that safe they have. But I’ll be back in a couple of hours, Georgie boy. I’ve collected on part of my investment and now I want to collect on the rest of it. You wait up for me, girlie. You can go get some shut-eye, Georgie.”

Big Larry looked at Stella, walked to the door, stood for a moment searching the shadows, then melted away into the darkness.

“You,” Ollie said to Stella, his voice showing his heartsickness at her betrayal.

“What?” she asked.

“Telling him about the safe — about that hundred dollars, giving him the combination—”

She said, “I couldn’t stand to have him hurt you.”

“You and the things you can’t stand,” Ollie said. “You don’t know Rubber-glove Giffen. You don’t know what you’re in for now. You don’t—”

“Shut up,” she interrupted. “If you’re going to insist on letting other people do your thinking for you, I’m taking on the job.”

He looked at her in surprise.

She walked over to the closet, came out with a wrecking bar. Before he had the faintest idea of what she had in mind she walked over to the cash register, swung the bar over her head, and brought it down with crashing impact on the front of the register. Then she inserted the point of the bar, pried back the chrome steel, and jerked the drawer open.

She went to the back door, unlocked it, stood on the outside, inserted the end of the wrecking bar, and pried at the door until she had crunched the wood of the door jamb.

George Ollie was watching her in motionless stupefaction. “What the devil are you doing?” he asked. “Don’t you realize—?”

“Shut up,” she said. “What’s this you once told me about a spindle job? Oh, yes, you knock off the knob and punch out the spindle—”

She walked over to the safe and swung the wrecking bar down on the knob of the combination, knocking it out of its socket, letting it roll crazily along the floor. Then she went to the kitchen, picked out a towel, and polished the wrecking bar clean of fingerprints.

“Let’s go,” she said to George Ollie.

“Where?” he asked.

“To Yuma,” she said. “We eloped an hour and a half ago — or hadn’t you heard? We’re getting married. There’s no delay or red tape in Arizona. As soon as we cross the state line we’re free to get spliced. You need someone to do your thinking for you. I’m taking the job.

“And,” she went on, as George Ollie stood there, “in this state a husband can’t testify against his wife, and a wife can’t testify against her husband. In view of what I know now, it might be just as well.”

George stood looking at her, seeing something he had never seen before — a fierce, possessive something that frightened him at the same time that it reassured him. She was like a panther protecting her young.

“But I don’t get it,” George said. “What’s the idea of wrecking the place, Stella?”

“Wait until you see the papers,” she told him.

“I still don’t get it,” he told her.

“You will,” she said.

George stood for another moment. Then he walked toward her. Strangely enough he wasn’t thinking of the trap but of the smooth contours under her pale blue uniform. He thought of Yuma, of marriage and of security, of a home.

It wasn’t until two days later that the local newspapers were available in Yuma. There were headlines on an inside page:

The newspaper account went on to state that Mrs. George Ollie had telephoned the society editor from Yuma stating that George Ollie and she had left the night before and had been married across the state line. The society editor had asked her to hold the phone and had the call switched to the police.

Police asked to have George Ollie put on the line. They had a surprise for him. It seemed that when the merchant patrolman had made his regular nightly check of Ollie’s restaurant at one a.m., he found it had been broken into. Police had found a perfect set of fingerprints on the cash register and on the safe. Fast work had served to identify the fingerprints as those of Big Larry Giffen, known in the underworld as Rubber-glove Giffen because of his skill in wearing rubber gloves and never leaving fingerprints. This was one job that Big Larry had messed up. Evidently he had forgotten his gloves.

Police had mug shots of Big Larry and in no time at all they had out a general alarm.

Only that afternoon George Ollie’s head waitress and part-time cashier had gone to the head of the police burglary detail. “In case we should ever be robbed,” she had said, “I’d like to have it so you get a conviction when you find the man who did the job. I left a hundred-dollar bill in the safe. I’ve torn off a corner. Here’s the tom comer. You keep it. That will give you a conviction if you get the thief.”

The police thought it was a fine idea. It was such a clever idea they were sorry they couldn’t have used it to pin a conviction on Larry Giffen.

But Larry had elected to shoot it out with the arresting officers. Knowing his record, officers had been prepared for this. After the sawed-off shotguns had blasted the life out of Big Larry, the police had found the bloodstained hundred-dollar bill in his pocket when his body was stripped at the morgue.

The police also found the loot from three other local jobs on him, cash amounting to $7000.

The police were still puzzled as to how it happened that Giffen, known to the underworld as the most artistic box-man in the business, had done such an amateurish job at the restaurant. Giffen’s reputation was that he had never left a fingerprint or a clue.

On being advised that his place had been broken into, George Ollie, popular restaurant owner, had responded in a way which was perfectly typical of honeymooners the world over.

“The hell with business,” he had told the police. “I’m on my honeymoon.”